by Ted Dekker
The men ran to the east, crouched low. They rounded a building and were gone. Stephen faced the apartment, still not comprehending exactly what had just happened. There had been three short flashes followed by two long flashes. The team had entered, secured, and then been beaten back by Braun somehow.
But how?
It didn’t matter how. The fact was, they were gone.
The desperation came quickly, pummeling him like a breaking wave.
He spun from the window, suddenly panicked. He should go anyway! He should run over there, dive through the window, zip into the basement, and grab the tin box! For all he knew, Sparks could have told his men to shut it down before he got in.
But Braun had managed to beat back five trained soldiers. He was either a lot smarter or a lot stronger than Stephen previously assumed.
He slowly lowered himself to the crate. The world faded. Five days of pent-up frustration flooded his chest. It was time to give up. It was time to go home and explain everything to the rabbi. To crawl out of this hole and rediscover the land of the living. Tears blurred his eyes, and he fought to contain himself.
“You okay, man?” Sweeney asked.
No, man, I’m dying here. Can’t you see that? Of course I’m okay. I’m a successful Realtor with eight hundred thousand dollars in the bank. Make that seven.
Melissa put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. We all have bad days.”
He lowered his head and tried to shake off the emotion. The attempt failed miserably. Silence swallowed them for a few minutes.
“Man, you have it bad, don’t you?”
Stephen cocked his head to see Sweeney sitting cross-legged in the corner of his hiding place.
“I have what bad?”
“The desires. You’ve got a case of the desires, and you have it bad. Maybe that’s good.”
Stephen didn’t bother with a response.
“That’s what I’m looking for, you know. It’s why I left the world behind and took on the bohemian ideals. I don’t know what about Rachel Spritzer’s place has you like this, but you’ve given yourself to it. Know what happens when you abandon yourself to something like that?”
“No, tell me.”
“It either ruins you or makes you. Drugs, for example. There’s some- thing that you give yourself to, and it ruins you. But give yourself to love, and it makes you.”
“Whatever.”
Sweeney stood. “Come on, Melissa, let’s leave Groovy to figure things out. He’s got me all inspired again.”
“Take care, Stephen,” she said. They looked at him from his doorway that wasn’t, and he knew that somewhere in his breaking down he’d earned their respect. Somehow, the realization comforted him. His new family was embracing him.
They left, and Stephen curled up on his bed.
“TEAR IT apart!” Roth thundered. “Every wall, every post, every carpet, the whole building, from top to bottom, starting with the third floor. We begin now!”
“It’s midnight,” Balzer said.
Roth glared at the man.
“We’re still recovering,” Balzer said.
The gas had rendered them unconscious for an hour before its effects faded. From what they could tell, four or five men had orchestrated the attack and been driven out by the tear gas. One of them had dropped a magazine of 627 rounds in their quick exit, most likely from an M-16. A stun grenade had killed one dog and knocked the other out.
The attackers had used a grenade launcher for the gas canister. Whoever they were, they didn’t lack resources.
Roth was pleased with the Jew’s efforts. It was critical that he find his own way in. Then, and only then, could Roth make his next move. If Stephen suspected at any point that he was being played for a fool, he would be compromised. He might even quit.
And what if the Jew actually outwitted him as his mother had outwitted Gerhard?
Roth would have to take that risk.
Suddenly angered, he lifted his pistol and shot Balzer through the head.
“Balzer was ill,” Roth said. “We don’t have time for illness. Is anyone else ill?”
No one challenged him.
“Good. I want this building stripped to the basement in two days.”
He faced Lars. “What was the name of the woman at the district attorney’s office?”
“Which woman?”
“The friend of the Realtor.”
Lars hesitated. “I don’t . . . maybe Sylvia. Yes. Sylvia Potok.”
“I need her address,” Roth said.
28
Torun
August 1, 1944
Dinnertime
RUTH’S FIRST MOMENT OF REDEMPTION CAME WHEN SHE STEPPED through the door to Braun’s house on the hill.
She’d been here at least a dozen times, and always she was greeted with a coy smirk, a look that said, Aren’t you fortunate to be in my presence? Tonight, the commandant stood by his dinner table, dressed in full dashing uniform, and his look went from coy to shocked in the space of two seconds. Ruth took a tiny measure of comfort in his surprise.
The guard shut the door behind her, and she faced Braun with as much courage as she could muster. Bitterness and fury had marched her up the hill, but now, looking at him blinking in his silly uniform, she felt more ill than angry.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His eyes shifted to the red scarf hanging from her arm. “I didn’t send for you.”
“You sent for a woman who is pregnant. Of course you would. Why waste a rope on one when you can hang two with the same rope?”
He stared at her, unmoving. “You think this is a joke?”
“Is it?”
Behind him, the table was set with two place settings of Dutch china, crystal glasses, white serviettes rolled in silver rings, and a single red rose.
Braun walked around the table, fingers dragging lightly on the silk tablecloth. “I sent for Martha, not you. There has been a mistake. I’ll send a guard—”
“I took the scarf.” She said it with her usual confidence, as if her visit was just another contest of wills. But she knew this one was different.
“You don’t have the right.” His face darkened. “I sent for Martha.”
“You insist on your sacrificial lambs. What kind of sacrifice does an unwilling victim make? I’m here willingly. Or don’t you have the courage to match mine?” She walked toward the table and met his eyes. “We’ll see who has more courage tonight, a small Jewish girl with a gun to her head, or a big, strapping Nazi thug.”
Ruth stepped past the commandant, lifted the lid on the white porcelain dish. Steam rose, scented of chicken and celery with a touch of ginger. She paused, gripped by the incredible sensations that ran through her mind with this single, delightful odor. She hadn’t smelled real food in many months, but this . . . this tantalizing scent seemed to spread right through her. And another scent—fresh bread from the kitchen. Fresh, hot, sweet. The back of her tongue tightened and immediately flooded her mouth with saliva. The rose that stood eighteen inches from her eyes was fragrant too. And it seemed redder than the roses she remembered in Slovakia. Such beauty blossoming from a stalk of thorns. The commandant said something, but she didn’t hear it.
What was coming over her? All her own words of new birth and hope and passion were now, at this very moment, being tested. In a way, she was coming alive, wasn’t she?
But what if it all was just talk? What if there was no true virtue or meaning in this madness of hers?
She swallowed and looked up at the commandant. “Shall we eat? It smells . . . delightful.”
He glared at her, but his shock seemed to have lost its edge. “I could have you both shot for this.”
“You could have had us both shot months ago. But you’re tired of shooting Jews; you told me that yourself. The challenge is gone, remember? So now I give you a new challenge. Accept a sacrifice in the place of another. You may be the only one in the entire war to have done so.”
“You’re worthless to me like this!”
She wasn’t sure what he could mean by that.
“How can you abandon your own child?” he demanded.
“How can you kill Martha’s child?”
“She is a Jew!” he shouted.
“So am I!”
To Braun, the war was a game in which he played god. Anything that elevated his status moved him closer to winning. Anything that diminished that status compromised his power. The fact that the Russians were advancing three hundred miles to the east hardly mattered. His game was here, in Toruń, and in Toruń he was winning.
Ruth pulled out the chair she assumed was hers and sat.
“You really believe that I will hang you and let the others live?” Braun demanded. “That’s your understanding of how I work?”
She immediately lost her appetite. It was his use of the word “others.” He meant Esther and Martha and Martha’s child, and she knew that he was fully capable of hanging her and then marching straight over to the barracks to murder Martha and the children. Esther would be most difficult for him, because he regarded himself as Esther’s benefactor. She was his proof that he was still human, merciful.
“I expect you to honor the rules of the game,” Ruth said. “You may be a murderer, but you still have honor, don’t you?” It was a bold-faced lie, but she knew he believed it.
The commandant pulled out his chair, sat, crossed his legs, and studied her carefully. “You never cease to amaze me,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t understand you. Are you positive that you’re Jewish?”
“Yes.” Fear began to work its fingers into her mind. He was going along with this. She knew he would, but she expected more of a fight. Maybe a quick gunshot to her head in a fit of anger. The thought of being hanged by a rope— “Okay, then. Have it your way. But I’ll have to kill your daughter. We can’t have a baby here without its mother. Maybe I’ll send it to Auschwitz in a potato sack.”
Ruth was suddenly moving without a clear understanding of what she was doing. She jumped to her feet. The hot porcelain dish with the ginger chicken was in her hands, and then she was hurling it against the back wall. It smashed into the wood with a horrendous crash.
“No!” She knew this wasn’t the way to deal with him. For a moment, she’d taken control of the game, but now he’d trumped her. “Don’t you dare touch her! Ever!”
He chuckled. Ruth stood, fists shaking at her sides. Her noble sacrifice felt foolish now. She had to control herself. For Esther’s sake.
“You have the spirit of twenty men,” Braun said. “But you should know by now that you can’t tell me what I can or can’t do. If I decide to kill your baby, I will. And if I decide she goes to Auschwitz in a potato sack, she goes. Your pathetic sacrifice means nothing.”
Ruth sat hard. She took a deep breath and set her hands, palms down, on the table. “I’m sorry. You struck a raw nerve,” she said, and then she swallowed to rid her voice of its tremor.
He was smiling, but she noticed that his upper lip was beaded with sweat. “Understandable,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Think, Ruth. Say what you came to tell him now, before he ends this game.
“But you shouldn’t kill my daughter or Martha. In fact, you should honor them. It follows the cleverness of your method here. You extend hope and then dash it. The problem with butchers like Himmler is that they don’t extend any hope. They simply take life, and take life, and take life, until the whole mess becomes meaningless. You’ve said that yourself.”
His smile softened. “And?”
“If after my sacrifice you kill Martha or Esther, you will crush the hope of the others completely. They’ll know you no longer play by the rules. The scarf will come, and they won’t care. You’ll become nothing more than yet one more cog in this killing machine.”
He regarded her with a long stare. The truth of her words struck her, and she hesitated, but she would say anything now to keep Esther and Martha alive.
“But if you honor them, you will flood the barracks with hope. The next time your scarf settles on one of their beds, they will be crushed. Killing the body is much easier than crushing the spirit.”
“All of this at the expense of your own life?” he said.
Her stomach turned. “Yes.”
“You really do love them, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t guarantee that they will live.”
“Then you aren’t as powerful as you think you are.”
Braun pushed back from the table, stood, gave her a long look, and walked to the window that overlooked the compound. Abandoned to silence once again, she considered what it would feel like to be hanged by the neck. Would the world go black immediately, or would she choke to death? Would her legs jerk?
Dear God, she was abandoning her baby! Her face flushed hot and she suddenly stood. How could she do such a thing to the beautiful, innocent life she’d given birth to only ten days earlier?
No, but there was Martha and Martha’s child. If Martha were standing here right now, two lives would be lost for certain. This was the only chance Martha’s child had.
Braun turned from the window, face fixed in a frown. “Have it your way, then.” He walked to the phone.
“Then make me a promise,” Ruth said.
“You’ve ruined my plans for the evening,” he said. “I’m not interested in giving the others hope. I had my heart set on taking Martha’s. You’re right about the power of hope. Desperation. Desire. I live for it. But you’ve disturbed me.”
“Promise me that you will let them live,” she said.
He picked up the field phone and spoke in a soft voice. “Now. Yes, now.” He set the phone back in its cradle.
“Promise me.” The tears sprang from her eyes before she knew that she was going to cry. The room swam, and she didn’t know what to do. Braun watched her, then walked to a dresser and opened a drawer.
Ruth looked away and closed her eyes. She had run out of smart arguments. The guards were coming up the hill. She’d committed herself to death, and she didn’t know what to do.
Except cry. She thought that crying now would be okay, because she’d already been strong enough. What did it matter if she died with tears in her eyes? No one would see except for a few guards, who had probably placed bets on how long she would jerk about on the end of the rope. Either way, she would be dead within the hour.
She let the tears stream, but she didn’t make a peep. No, that was too much in front of this monster. And she wouldn’t beg anymore, no matter how much she wanted to. Braun would not respond well to a begging woman.
“Look at me.”
Braun stood three feet from her. In one hand he held a sharp, thin knife. In the other he held a crystal wine glass. He looked like a demon.
“I will do as you request on one condition.”
A wedge of hope. She felt suffocated.
“Anything,” she said. A sob. “Anything, I swear, anything.”
“I will let them live, Ruth. But I need some of your blood. I want you to give me some of your blood. Willingly.”
“My blood?”
“Just a small cut on your wrist.”
His request made no sense.
“I need it to verify your child’s blood line.”
Ruth was beyond caring about his reasoning. She believed him. And with her belief came a flood of hope unlike any she’d felt in a very long time.
She stood, trembling from head to foot. He was blurry from her tears, but she held out her arm, wrist up. “Cut me,” she said. “Just save my baby. I beg you to save my baby.”
He took her hand gently. Rubbed her palm with his finger, fascinated by her skin. It was the first time he had touched her. “I will. I swear I will let your baby live. And I will let you live as well.”
Electricity shot through her veins. Could he mean it?
She felt the cold edge of the blade on her wrist.
“I swear you will survive this war.”
He jerked the knife. The blade stung. She gasped. The cut was deeper than she had expected.
Braun twisted her wrist and watched the blood dribble into the glass beneath. His eyes were wild and his lips were parted.
Ruth felt a pang of fear.
He dropped her arm and lifted the glass to his nose. Sniffed it like a delicate flower. For a moment she thought he was going to taste it.
Braun looked at her as if suddenly realizing that she was still in the room. They exchanged stares. Then he smiled.
“There is one force in this universe that rules them all,” he said. “It is the power behind war and love and life and death. It is hope. Desire. It is passion. It is what enables a mother to give her life for a child. It is what sends man on his search for God. It is what set Lucifer on his ambitious course. It is heaven and it is hell. The desires and affections of man are in the crosshairs.”
She was too shocked to move.
“Like Lucifer, I have entered the fray, my dear.”
A knock sounded on the door.
He lifted the glass and swirled the blood like a red wine. Then Gerhard Braun lifted the glass to his lips, tilted it back, and drank it to the last drop. When he lowered his arm, his eyes were closed, his breathing ragged, his lips red.
The blood drained from Ruth’s head. “You made a promise . . .”
The door opened.
“Which I have no intention of keeping,” Braun said. He set the glass on the table. “Hang her. Now.”
Boots clumped.
Ruth’s throat had frozen shut with horror. They pulled a black bag over her head and quickly bound her arms behind her back. She gave in to their handling completely.
They pushed her forward, down the stairs she’d climbed so many times. Maybe he would let Esther live. Maybe hanging her would be enough for him.
Father, give my baby hope!
She blinked in the pitch darkness and tried to push the picture of the front gate from her mind. The musty cloth pressed into her nostrils. Did they force this same cloth over all of their victims’ heads? She imagined the other women who’d taken this walk, how they must have felt all alone in complete darkness, certain only that their lives were about to end. Did they cry? Was it dried tears that she smelled?
